1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to safety ropes, and more specifically to an illuminable safety rope and a method and system for fabricating and deploying the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Safety ropes having various characteristics have been developed to reduce risk to users when endeavoring to overcome hazardous environments. For example, emergency responders such as fire fighters and other rescue personnel exposed to hazardous conditions or environments have often found it useful to include one or more safety ropes to guide or climb as they enter and exit a dangerous location, such as a burning building, darkened tunnel, or other area unfamiliar to the responder. For example, firefighters are constantly forced to enter darkened, smoke-filled environments. Their ability to see is greatly diminished, and the risk of losing their way out, even with a conventional safety rope to help guide them is extreme.
Another hazardous condition in which safety ropes are very helpful is in marine environments, for example, to help rescue persons in the water. During marine based rescue operations, emergency personnel utilize a water resistant throw rope or throw bag to pull a victim out of harms way. As a rope is an important rescue tool, any improvement in the quality of the rope will aid operatives immensely. A person in need of rescue is usually in a distressed state physically and/or mentally. Under best conditions it is often difficult for a person being rescued to find and grab a hold of the rescue rope. Adverse conditions, such as low visibility during nightfall, adverse weather conditions, choppy sea conditions, among other hazardous conditions frustrate rescue operation even further.
To overcome some of the adverse conditions, marine safety operatives often use high powered flood lights to illuminate the person being rescued, however the use of such lighting can temporarily blind and cause difficulty for such person to locate the throw rope. The lack of visibility of these throw ropes has hampered emergency operations, protracting the time and ease of rescue.
US Publication No. 2005/0184674 discloses a linear lighting system including a flexible reinforced electroluminescent (EL) cable, a power module and power management module for use in firefighting, rescue, hazardous materials, law enforcement and other applications to define work zones, hazard zones paths, and the like. The EL wires and cables are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,819,973 and 5,869,930, and the contents of these patents and publication are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
As described in the '930 patent to Baumberg et al., a conductive core wire, such as copper, serves as a first electrode, and is covered by an electrically insulating dielectric layer (e.g., BaTiO3 powder. An electroluminophor layer covers the dielectric layer. The electroluminophor layer can include EL particles and a binder with air-containing pours. A thin electrode layer, such as a gold or copper, covers or can be wound about the electroluminophor layer to form the EL wire. A barrier layer covers the second electrode layer to prevent seepage of a liquid (e.g., ethyl acetate, which wets the binder) through the pours, and a flexible insulating layer such as a polymer (e.g., polyethylene or PVC layer) covers the barrier layer to transform the EL wire to an EL cable. The EL cable described in the abovementioned '674 publication utilizes similar EL wires as disclosed in the '930 patent with a plastic layer(s) disposed there over to form the EL cable.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,758,314 discloses that the EL cabling can be stored on and deployed from a portable reel and drum to which the cable is connected and wound upon. The EL cable is powered by an alternating power source which can include a DC power supply and an inverter. The inverter inverts DC to AC to provide the AC power to the EL cable. The electronics for providing power can be stored in the drum and connected to the EL cable to provide power. Although the reel neatly stores the EL cable, the user must carry the reel and drum to deploy the EL cable. The reel and drum are cumbersome, inflexible, and add undesirable weight to the rescuer's equipment load. Further, the reel cannot be carried by the rescuer in a convenient manner, as it is either carried by hand or bucked to a belt. Moreover, the EL cable can snag or otherwise bind and/or become entangled on the reel when being unspooled during deployment.
Alternatively, the EL cabling can be stored in and deployed from a bag. Although the bag is lighter in weight than the aforementioned reel and drum deployment system, the EL wire is prone to snag, knot or otherwise become entangled while being deployed from the bag if the EL wire is not properly spooled or wound therein:
It is thus desirable to provide an improved safety rope that illuminates along its length and is easy to deploy under poorly illuminated conditions, or under adverse or hazardous conditions, especially in emergency situations. Moreover, it is desirable to provide emergency responders with an illuminated safety rope and deployment system that is user-friendly, reliable, has increased tensile strength, is less costly to manufacture and maintain, and of significantly higher quality than is presently available.